Without getting too much into the backstory, AOL/TechCrunch is in disarray. Site founder Mike Arrington was forced out, and then yesterday one of the site’s writers flamed out in spectacular fashion, posting a public resignation letter on the site itself. It led to an interesting back and forth on Twitter about gender, and whether or not Carr would have been received differently were he a she.
| “ | Ousted Yahoo CEO caught flack for saying “I was fired” in email to staff but Paul Carr’s heroic for a teenage resignation post? Gender much? |
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This was the first tweet I saw that started the discussion. I disagreed, for three reasons. First, I just didn’t think that gender mattered. (I could very well be wrong!) And second, most of the discussion I’ve seen has been pretty condemning of Carr. I know several people who didn’t even finish it, because they viewed it as so self serving, so immature, so, well, dumb.
But mostly, it seemed to me that Carr didn’t receive as much immediate criticism because he wasn’t the CEO of AOL/Techcrunch.
| “ | @nancybaym You think that was a gender issue? I think it has more to do with rank (underling vs ceo)
Personally I found both entertaining! |
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| “ | @mat You think a woman who wrote what Carr did would be getting praise vs unprofessional psychobitch criticism? |
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| “ | @mat Tho rank is certainly relevant I agree. |
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| “ | @nancybaym But is @paulcarr getting a lot of praise? There’s a lot of schadenfreude aimed at AolHuffleCrunch, but I’m not sure that’s praise |
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I tried to advance my rank argument again by citing someone who is both well-respected and a founder. I used Xeni Jardin, co-editor of BoingBoing, to make my case.
| “ | @nancybaym I think it depends on the person. Like (although she wouldn’t) @xenijardin could get away with a letter like that I think. |
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| “ | @mat gonna hafta disagree. @nancybaym is correct, even in my case. |
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| “ | @nancybaym watching all the bro-on-bro backslapping around this is really weird. Am I the only non-bro who feels this way? |
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| “ | @xenijardin If you were I wouldn’t have made my original comment. It’s a total boyfest. But then it’s Techcrunch isn’t it? |
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| “ | @nancybaym I feel like nobody but us groks this. And by us, I mean LADYPERSONS. |
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And okay, that’s probably true. The only people I’ve seen talking about the reaction as having anything to do with gender have been women. (Well, except for Anil Dash, but he’s the exception that proves the rule.) And as you’ll see in a minute, even people who weren’t part of the discussion were having the same idea.
| “ | @nancybaym another sign you are correct: they’re talking about whether Carr “bankable,” not “bangable.” |
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| “ | @xenijardin Are ladypersons even talking about it besides us? It was to me so blatantly a letter a woman could never get away with writing. |
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| “ | @xenijardin Of course the irony is that it’s a woman whose orchestrating the whole thing. Maybe she knows what she’s doing. |
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| “ | @nancybaym @xenijardin Obviously, @paulcarr had a bad case of the vapors.
(But seriously, you should write about this.) |
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| “ | @mat maybe. writing on gender-y stuff engenders (heh see wut i did) so much nastiness from some male readers, it’s a downer. cc @nancybaym |
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It was amazing to me that neither Nancy and Xeni were willing to write about it because they’d get so much hate. (Of course, they already are writing about it on Twitter!) That’s telling in and of itself. But in thinking about it, I still wasn’t ready to concede that gender was at play here.
| “ | @xenijardin @nancybaym Do you think people would have reacted differently if that post had come from @sarahcuda?
(not arguing; interested) |
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| “ | @mat OMG YES, of course they would! Sorry, late to the convo. cc: @xenijardin @nancybaym @sarahcuda |
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Veronica Belmont dives in at this point to disagree with me.
And shortly after she did, I remembered the reaction to Sarah Lacy at SxSW when she interviewed Mark Zuckerberg. The interview was bad, but the reaction was blown all out of proportion. While Zuck’s social awkwardness played a large role (have you ever seen a good interview with Zuck?) much of the back-channel reaction was overtly sexist.
| “ | @mat @xenijardin @Veronica Yeah I stand by my original point that a woman who wrote that would not get shout outs for Best Resignation Evah |
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| “ | @nancybaym it’s frustrating, because it’s not something you can prove until it happens. But I have no doubt. cc: @mat @xenijardin |
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| “ | @Veronica @mat @nancybaym @sarahcuda the hashtag would have been #crazybitch |
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| “ | @anildash @xenijardin @nancybaym @Veronica the fucked up thing is, @sarahcuda is way too level-headed to flame out like that… |
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At this point Timoni West joined the conversation. Timoni is recently of Yahoo-owned (and mis-managed) Flickr.
| “ | @mat (not fucked up: expected.) |
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| “ | @Veronica @mat @xenijardin @nancybaym As as former Yahoo!: a lot of us thought Bartz’s email was a fake, on first read. |
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| “ | @Veronica @mat @xenijardin @nancybaym Which I think has little to do with gender–it just seemed odd, and out of character. |
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| “ | @timoni Do you think her getting so much shit for it was gendered? (@Veronica @mat @xenijardin) |
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| “ | @Veronica @mat @xenijardin @nancybaym Yep. Entirely possible. |
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And that’s the thing. Nobody knows!
People will use any excuse to attack someone’s position. Don’t like what I have to say? You can blame it on me being an elitist San Francisco hipster. But if I’d never moved away from Alabama, you’d probably just call me a redneck. So it goes.
Okay. So that was all yesterday. But what inspired me to build this Storify today was logging onto Twitter and seeing the following tweet from Rachel Sklar.
| “ | It occurs to me that if the TechCrunch brouhaha had happened at a women’s website, it would be widely referred to as a catfight. |
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| “ | @mat @rachelsklar @nancybaym @veronica @timoni the “women and media” part I care about. The TC part not so much. |
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Women, of course, do face a stiffer set of prejudices than I ever will. I’m a white guy raised in a middle class home with college-educated parents. I’ve got very little idea of what it’s like to face bias and have to prove yourself by being exceptional simply to be treated equally.
The bottom line for me, and to a large extent why this is interesting to me to advance the discussion, is because I’ve got a 7 month-old daughter.
I want her to be whatever, whoever, however she wants. I want her to have every opportunity, and to be treated equally at every turn. Even if that means being able to act like a baby on the Internet.
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